


Once More, Blood

by holyfant



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F, Tumblr Prompt, short fic meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 19:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9199640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/pseuds/holyfant
Summary: Janine's job is knowing when to look and when to look away.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [221brosiewilde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/221brosiewilde/gifts).



> for queeriarty/221brosiewilde, for their short fic meme request: "40. exes meeting again after years of not speaking au". Unbeta'ed, error-pointing-out welcome!

As Magnussen is fond of reminding her, one of the most important aspects of Janine's job is to know when to look demurely down at her papers when buzzing in one of her boss's appointments, and when to sit back and print every detail of their faces into her memory. Certain people need the alibi of entering the office publicly; others want to come and go without being noticed; yet others would like to but must never be permitted to. It's a difficult skill to hone – she must know everything about everyone on his agenda, and she must keep track of the knowledge that would be dangerous to have so that she never lets Magnussen know that she has it. He doesn't trust her, simply because his water-flighty mind is incapable of trust, and he keeps information from her as easily as he would give it to her. Being his secretary is a constant game of knowing when to look and knowing when to look away. She's been here for thirteen months; longer than anyone else. She doesn't make the mistake of believing that this necessarily means she's doing something right. Her boss is, by all standards, completely unpredictable.

 

Tonight, he has a late appointment; the name is Russian and she doesn't immediately recognise it, though something about it niggles in the back of her mind, like brushing up against a hurriedly discarded memory. Late-night liaisons either mean criminal contacts or prostitutes; she rather hopes it's the first, and if the second she hopes it's one of his regulars who already knows what he wants, because she's becoming more and more resistant to seeing the first-timers slip out through the front entrance of his office; looking either hardened or shocked. He likes to do that, she knows: send them out publicly, past Janine's desk.

 

When the system announces the arrival of the appointment Janine buzzes them in without speaking to them or checking the camera; she's resolved not to look, which is safest when she doesn't know who she's dealing with. She focuses on the files on her desk, hunching her shoulders. The approaching clicking of high heels makes her grit her teeth – there is a tightness in her consciousness tonight, one that is fueled by her growing impatience with her role, and it's spreading across her shoulders and temples in flickers of tense pain.

 

The footsteps stop in front of her desk. Janine takes care to ignore the impulse to look up.

 

“Well, I certainly hope _you're_ getting paid the overtime.”

 

Janine allows a little pause. Her eyes focus on a word in the file in front of her: _consequences_. “Christ,” she breathes.

 

“I must say I was hoping for rather a warmer welcome.” Irene's hand comes into vision, smoothing across the papers on Janine's desk. Her nails, a ring with a diamond on her wedding finger.

 

Janine looks up because she must, even though she knows she shouldn't. Irene is in a simple black dress, her make-up more dramatic than what Janine was always used to.

 

“I can't believe this,” Janine says. It's a physical shock to see Irene, after all the years of closing herself off to this hurt: the open wound that Irene had left. It turns out that she had only numbed herself, rather than healed, and now that this woman is here again there is, once more, blood.

 

“Oh, as if you'd lost track of me.” Irene bares her teeth between brilliant red lipstick.

 

“I tried,” Janine lies, even though she knows Irene can easily tell the truth.

 

“I'm wounded.” The smile softens. “It's good to see you.”

 

“Not likewise,” Janine says, not lying this time. “Why are you here?”

 

Irene looks in the direction of Magnussen's office. “Broadening my horizons, I suppose.”

 

Janine narrows her eyes at her. “You're not here professionally, are you?”

 

“What _is_ professionally, these days?” Irene says. Her tone is playful but her eyes are hard: rimmed with kohl. “Blending the private and the professional is what I do.”

 

“ _This_ isn't your playground, and it's dangerous.” Janine instantly recognises in herself the tone that Irene always used to mock.

 

“Tssss.” Irene straightens. There is a new something in her face that Janine hasn't seen yet: a cold and stony resolve. “ _I_ 'm dangerous.”

 

“Don't,” Janine says, “don't go in there. He's –“

 

“Repulsive. I know. Darling, I've dealt with men like him a hundred times.” Irene is frowning now.

 

It would be easy to let her go and learn for herself – after all that's happened between them, after all the painful extricating of herself from the bottomless well that was Irene, Janine should feel pleased at the prospect. Instead, she says “No,” and she sounds like she's begging. “No, you haven't. You don't know him, he's vile.”

 

Irene looks down on her, still frowning. “You're different,” she says. “You used to trust me.”

 

“Yes,” Janine says. “And that was a mistake.”

 

Irene looks at her tightly, her red mouth a thin line. “I'm late. I have to go in.” Without waiting for a reply she turns to go, then looks back over her shoulder. “Meet me after,” she says. “We can compare notes.”

 

Janine doesn't think of saying no until she's gone, heels loud on the marble, slipping into Magnussen's office like a black-shrouded ghost.


End file.
